Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday July 15, 2013 @02:27PM
from the do-as-we-say-and-as-we-do dept.

judgecorp writes "Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has given her backing to proposed European privacy regulations and demanded that U.S. firms should meet German privacy rules. Merkel's stance comes as U.S. firms lobby against strict E.U. privacy proposals — but also follows revelations from Edward Snowden through German newspaper Der Spiegel, that the German authorities are helping the NSA spy on German citizens."

My reading on that is that *if* the new European Commission data privacy rules get passed, then Germany would expect US firms to abide by those rules *for citizens of the EU*. Seems quite reasonable, actually.

Basically it's just an extension of the fact that those same US firms already have to comply with existing privacy rules in various countries around the world. (I seem to recall Google having to blur faces and license plates when it launched Street View in Canada...)

My reading on that is that *if* the new European Commission data privacy rules get passed, then Germany would expect US firms to abide by those rules *for citizens of the EU*. Seems quite reasonable, actually.

Isn't it? But it is difficult to understand for Americans.
Here in US, when companies are blatantly violating the law, they are retroactively shielded by Congress, instead of being punished and forced into compliance.

US companies are expected to follow the laws of the country they work in. So if they work in the US, even with data from the EU, they are expected to offload anything to any government organisation without asking questions. "for citizens of the EU" is meaningless. Data is data. People are just resources.

What I'd really like to know is whether Merkel's rule only apply to US corporations. In other words, will France's DGSE's collection of the same information as that the USG is collecting through US Corporations get a free pass? From the info I can find, it seems so...

Given the geographical position that France is in, much of the transatlantic traffic passes through France & thus is snooped by the DGSE, so no I don't think that this is merely an internal French issue. It's hard to be hypocritical in condemning US behaviour, but purposefully ignoring French acts helps.

What I'd really like to know is whether Merkel's rule only apply to US corporations. In other words, will France's DGSE's collection of the same information as that the USG is collecting through US Corporations get a free pass? From the info I can find, it seems so...

Chances are that Germany has spy programs every bit as intrusive as the US does, and that every German telcom and data retention company is every bit as "backdoored" to agencies of the German Government just as the are in the US.

Yes, the DGSE has to comply with German rules when dealing with German citizens. It has to comply with EU rules when dealing with everything, even non-EU citizens. Unlike the US we don't have this concept of rights only applying to our own citizens, they apply to everyone.

My reading on that is that *if* the new European Commission data privacy rules get passed, then Germany would expect US firms to abide by those rules *for citizens of the EU*. Seems quite reasonable, actually.

Why does it seem reasonable for Germany to decide how firms in the US behave? Why is it not the responsibility of citizens of the EU to decide whether they will do business with firms in the US or not? If there are firms in the EU which are leaking customer information to firms in the US who don't respect the laws they are required to follow, then sue the leakers. If people in the EU choose to do business with firms in the US, why shouldn't they be subject to the laws of the US?

But these US companies do business in the EU. If, say, Google really truly only existed in the US it'd be one thing, but they do not. They make a good deal of their income from advertising and services in the EU; have facilities, offices and data centers there; most have daughter companies in the area.

Put it this way: EU car makers must follow US safety standards for the vehicles they export to the US, right? Even though they don't actually make them there, or have the head office there or anything. So, if you're an online business and solicit users and income in the EU it's jsut as reasonable that you have to follow local laws for that business as well.

They make a good deal of their income from advertising and services in the EU; have facilities, offices and data centers there; most have daughter companies in the area.

If those facilities, offices, and data centers are owned by the American company, then perhaps Germany should be looking into laws which permit that instead of trying to make other nations' corporations behave by their laws. You can't even _do_ that in China, you have to partner with a Chinese firm to even have that kind of presence there. If Germany wants that level of control, perhaps they should institute it.

There's no inherent need to permit a foreign corporation to own land and an effective business; f

All this would be much easier if we just got away from huge Multinational corporations being able to run their local branches as if the were in the US.

I'm fine with Google being incorporated in multiple countries, as long as they are separate entities, (both for tax purposes and legal requirements) AND if they kept private data within national (or EU) borders.

How hard would it be to keep German Google user's data inside Germany? Gmail, google drive, and several other services would simply host all user's d

How hard would it be to keep German Google user's data inside Germany?

Probably pretty easy. And really they only need to make a good-faith effort to keep EU data within the EU. But as you say, they really would have to be separate entities for this to work. There's just no way otherwise to avoid nations applying pressure to get their way.

They only had to blur the faces you see on the pages. Behind the curtain an entirely different scene is taking place. The originals are handed over to the authorities. You don't think that they would pass by such a great opportunity to collect some intelligence, do you?

The same government that brought us the "Bundestrojaner" (a trojan to be employed by law enforcement), that did pretty much anything to create Stasi 2.0 is now complaining about someone else doing it to them.

Keep in mind that to Google and Facebook, each user is a product, not a customer.

They do have business presences in most European countries to interact with their real customers, i.e. advertisers. It sounds reasonable to expect them to adhere to local laws in countries that they do business in.

Mmm, really? Arab countries famously have laws prohibiting Israeli content in products. The US has laws outlawing such (http://www.bis.doc.gov/complianceandenforcement/antiboycottcompliance.htmt).

The problem is that you can't get countries to agree to have compatible laws, and the internet presence of a company is effectively in one place. If the rules are different from locale to locale, users will tend to gravitate to one particular locale that is most attractive (for whatever reason). Insisting on en

Having the US to blame for everything helps pull the continent together. I'd like to see Europe cut itself off from Google, Apple. Ebay, et.al. It would be entertaining.

You've got that backwards.

It's not up to the EU to cut off Google, Ebay, et al. It's up to Google, Ebay, et al. to cut themselves off from Europe.

Apple is different, Apple has a lot of property in Europe the EU can seize for non compliance, then it becomes the case above.

Europeans can continue to use Google, Ebay and even Itunes as long as Google, Ebay and Apple permit access. The EU cant change that, what the EU can do is:
1) seize any property belonging to the company in Europe, this includes Ima

When Facebook/Google sells to local businesses in Europe, it does not matter that f/g is entirely off shored as they needEly block the money. For an example of how off shored businesses can be brought to heel, see the gambling sites the USG has been blocking.

A speaker from a large company there warned those attending (mainly from Europe) to avoid US cloud companies because of NSA spying. Not just US-based servers, but also any company with SUPPORT STAFF located in the US as well, even if the servers are located outside of the US.

Reason 1 is the risk of private company information flowing to competitors through the NSA either officially or through corruption.

Reason 2 is the legal risk of falling afoul of EU privacy laws by hosting in the US or with US support staff.

That's the report from Europe folks. You can call it FUD, but it is there nonetheless.

Reason #2 "problems with EU privacy laws" is actually quite real. While the law itself is toothless (regarding the possible sanctions), it would disturb me as an IT manager or sales manager to just use a great service like Salesforce.com and to have migrated all my data there and trained mys stuff - just to learn that I was convicted to adhere to privacy laws in the EU and that any US based company cannot comply (because of US laws) and are now obliged to change everything. Too much of a hassle; I would s

This is no different than doing business with any foreign entity. If you buy physical product from some offshore supplier, local business & warranty laws don't apply to them.

If you're dealing in data with a foreign entity, that entity is not bound to your local data laws. The only difference is that now in the "information age" regular home users are exposed to the risks involved.

Multinational corporations will always have a presence in Europe. Google maintains several offices throughout Germany. If you want to do business in a country on the scale the giants do, you need a local subsidary.

I see this again and again and again in every stupid fucking article about some European country not bowing down to US corporate interests. It's always the same moronic argument that basically boils down to "we powerful US corporations can do what we want, if Europe doesn't like it, we can pull out of there and then they'll be sorry".

The real world disagrees. Google pulling out of Europe would mean a bit of an inconvenience for Europe, and a dramatically damaged Google. I would go so far and claim that it's a move that could potentially destroy them. Or any other Internet giant.

What would happen to Europe if we lost Google, or Facebook? There'd be a lot of whining, and someone would step up to fill the gap before you can finish writing your blog post about the whining I mentioned, and after a short while, Googles or Facebooks would have powerful competition with a strong base in Europe and pressing on them in their other markets.

Seriously, idiots on/. are the only people seriously suggesting such a suicide move. The real players would rather pump a few millions into lobby work.

I'm not saying that big US based multinationals don't have to bow down to Europe, they do. They have to abide by the laws of any country they are in.

I'm saying eventually internet speed will be so fast and the internet economy will change to a point where they won't need to have a physical presence in every country. They can limit their physical presence to where the laws suit them best.

I mean really, the majority of Google's offerings are delivered through a browser. If you look at the reasons they need a

I'm saying eventually internet speed will be so fast and the internet economy will change to a point where they won't need to have a physical presence in every country. They can limit their physical presence to where the laws suit them best.

You have two assumptions in there that are wrong.

One, that physical presence matters for legal questions. It doesn't.Two, that technical details determine where a corporation has a physical presence. They don't.

I can only repeat my example again. Google does not, to the best of my knowledge, have any servers in Germany. It does, however, have several offices and a german subsidary - for marketing purposes. Because your big customers want you to come to their office to sign that big deal.

I recall a story about Facebook having to comply with Germany's privacy laws, and only really being forced to do so because they had an office in Hamburg. If they had not had a presence in Germany, they could not have been forced to comply, so yes, a physical presence does seem to matter for legal question.

I disagree that technical details do not play a part in whether a company has a physical presence in a country or continent. Do you really expect companies like Google or Facebook to have all their server

I recall a story about Facebook having to comply with Germany's privacy laws, and only really being forced to do so because they had an office in Hamburg. If they had not had a presence in Germany, they could not have been forced to comply, so yes, a physical presence does seem to matter for legal question.

The Facebook office here in Hamburg (yes, I live there) is a pure marketing office. It contains no part of the Facebook infrastructure.

What you are probably mixing up is that because Facebook has a german subsidary, that company would be served with any legal proceedings.

Legal steps against a foreign corporation are more complicated and tricky, but entirely possible, especially within the EU. So withdrawing from Germany (or any other EU country) alone would buy you a little bit of administrative overhead an

How do you figure that? If paypal forwards money between people in the world, and Google happens to get some money from a paypal account that happens to be based in Germany, why would Google have to comply with German laws?

Weren't there lawsuits filed against Google and Yahoo! in the USA and EU for them turning over data on Chinese dissidents to China's Government. Yes, China's Government may be abusive, but it was required under Chinese law. Why is it important for Google to adhere to Germany's laws but not to China's laws? If Germany's privacy laws require Google to do things that violate America's FISA laws, who's to say who has primacy? If anything, the fact that the majority of Google's servers are in America probably me

This still sounds better than what we have in the US, where the politicians close their eyes, run for awhile, then declare "This is what you asked for! No, I'm not going to come all of the way back there...do you realize how far I ran?"

Are you kidding? Every legislator has 20/10 vision when it comes to seeing the money special interests hand out like water for re-elections. Those who claim to recognize it, however are apparently unable to recognize to the paid shills who show up at their doorstep to feed them "well researched" bullshit that is biased towards the shill's handlers. Corrupt or stupid, but certainly not blind.

I agree fully, a while back my district had a politician that would run polls for nearly every issue that came up and would even vote against his preference if there was a strong feeling from his constituency. He was branded a flip-flop politician, which I thought was pretty unfair. I personally felt that asking those whom you represent what they think you should say and acting on that information is what a good representative should be doing.

This ought to be a requirement.Sure, the poll would need some form of authentication so that labor unions and big business can't hire hordes of minions to stuff the electronic ballot box.

But given that, any vote against majority wishes should be published, and the legislator should have to account for it. The majority isn't always right, but they are always the majority, and if you can't get them to elect you in spite of the fact they occasionally have to be ignored, then you probably shouldn't be running.

I agree fully, a while back my district had a politician that would run polls for nearly every issue that came up and would even vote against his preference if there was a strong feeling from his constituency. He was branded a flip-flop politician, which I thought was pretty unfair. I personally felt that asking those whom you represent what they think you should say and acting on that information is what a good representative should be doing.

Conversely, in my state (Colorado) the Senate President, John Morse (D) did TV interviews and spoke with other legislative Democrats about the importance of "not listening to the ugliness" when it appeared that some of his gun control proposals were extremely unpopular. He pushed them forward anyway. He narrowly won his seat last time (thanks to a 3rd party) and roughly half of those who voted in the last election signed petitions to trigger a recall against him (only 25% was required). It now looks like h

Well, it would be interesting to see the introduction of the Flipflop Party (their animal could be a fish) that espoused no particular goal other than empowering the will of the people (by way of internet polls).

I'll take a leader who leads people places they want to go over leaders that go wherever the hell they want any day of the week.

The problem with Merkel is though: she leads us to places where she think the people want to go and after we just arrived there, she does a 180 degree turn and 'leads' us back to where we came from (sometimes even further).

While I admire people that are honestly able to admit an error, I despise people that seem to have no own opinion/conviction.

I'll take a leader who leads people places they want to go over leaders that go wherever the hell they want any day of the week.

What about a situation where "the people" in general (a) can't decide where they want to go, and(b) if there is anything like a consensus, it's for something that is impossible, dangerous, or likely to be highly expensive and ineffective?

When it comes down to it, as long as the system provides the means to demand courses be reversed if they are going wrong in a timely manner, even an insane population should still be workable. The trick is to educate them on the issues, not just ask really vague poll questions.

Nope, that is actually the definition of opportunistic behaviour. In a democracy, in theory we transfer power to people we have elected for certain goals and values. If I wanted a flag hanging in the wind, parties would become obsolete.

Parties are obsolete. We don't need 'sides' to get behind and we don't need some arbitrary party organization dictating the policies of those 'sides' to the elected officials belonging to those parties. Our elected officials were elected to represent the will of the will of the people and I don't believe many people would argue that this is what our politicians are currently doing or have done for quite some time. Two party politicians get elected based upon their campaign's stated goals and somehow ev

Those that actually care about the world that our own or even your grandchildren will live in will provide for them. You can go on with your meaningless life secure in the idea that you just didn't have the time to make it worth anything at all.

The real politics of the current government are... let's just say they are so deep in certain lobby and interest group pockets, it isn't even funny anymore. If someone had done a satire about this ten years ago, I don't think anyone would have printed it because it would've sounded too outlandish and overdone.

Excepept its usually morea bunch of sheep and a few wolves except the wolves work to convince the sheep the wolves are actually sheepdogs and if a few sheep were to disappear... the remaining sheep are told its because they didn'tlisten to the wolves, er sheepdogs.

So she's a democratically elected politician. What's your point? Politicians *never* lead any major changes, and are frequently changing policies in reflection of a change in the desires of the electorate that happened 5-10 years earlier.

I want her to lead an agenda, no doubt about that. But I do expect a politician to have an idea what they're doing. With her, you usually get the idea that she has NO idea what's going on and she's waiting for the newspapers to cause a stink, waits for the reaction from population and other media, then regurgitates whatever she heard there.

That's not a leader, sorry.

It's also nothing I can trust. You should have seen her during the change in Egypt. Depending on where the wind is blowing she supported, oppos

It's like back with the nuclear disaster in Japan. Continuing vs. stopping to use nuclear power was a big issue in Germany back then, and her party was originally strongly for continued use. With the pressure, she suddenly decided that she really wants to get out of nuclear power, better sooner than later.

That's good! Reacting to voter pressure is what a politician should do.

Guess what? You don't hear jack about that anymore. It's just not an issue anymore.

Just because it's not in the mainstream media doesn't mean it's not an issue and just because you aren't hearing about it doesn't nothing is being done, in fact they are being dismantled [spiegel.de].

All the politicians in the EU were quite vocal about US spying activities until their respective intelligence agencies took them aside and explained that they were doing the same thing and routinely request US collected data for their own purposes. It seems the whole world is in shock after learning that intelligence agencies actually spy. I wish the people "leaking information" would leak something about what really happened in Roswell, NM and who really killed JFK. Think of the mayhem that information wou

NO. All the eastern EU countries had the Stasi, Securitate etc. etc. up until the Wende in 1990. That's still in most people's living memory. They know what it leads, to and why they didn't like full-blown surveillance. That's almost half the EU you're talking about (not the Western Europe traditionally seen as "the EU" but still).I think this situation is different than anything before, except for countries like the former GDR where it brings back memories of "the bad old times".

political scientists in germany call her and the current government the worst ever. see nothing, do nothing, know nothing. election in 2 months. means every spoken word is BULLSHIT. her party members in the EU allready follow her real agenda in this matter.

I think Merkel deserves a statue in Berlin, not because I like her CDU politics ( I don't) but because she managed to be a hard-working and conscientious(sp?) leader of the Germans in one of the most difficult periods after WWII. Now I'm going to say something sexist, weird and irrational, so you can have a laugh if you disagree.

The fact that she's a woman is, in my honest opinion, of crucial importance in how the credit crisis developed in the EU. Whenever there's a big crisis, the demagogues in every c

Not to take away from your argument, but being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize isn't actually that difficult.

The statutes of the Nobel Foundation specify categories of individuals who are eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. These nominators are:
Members of national assemblies and governments and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice at the Hague
Members of Institut de Droit InternationalUniversity

First of all, don't feed the trolls. Second, since the discussion is basically an ad hominem or a personal attack on the guy:

His name has been put up for the Nobel Peace Prize as of today

Which puts him in the same category as Adolf Hitler [nobelprize.org]. Man, did he bring some peace, or what? (Sorry for Godwin'ing the conversation, but you have to admit that it's funny to point that out)

Nobel peace price (nomination) means nothing. Barack Obama has one, which was to be called premature at best, but undeserved would be more appropriate. Then again, at the time people were still expec

How do you figure that part? There are certainly a number of more profitable things he could have done with this information instead, so he definitely acted selflessly (regardless of whether it was or was not legal and regardless whether you agree with his actions).

So a German visits my site. 3 years later I learn I have a default judgement against my site in Germany. What do I care?

Depends how you found out... If you found out during your vacation on the Rhine, you'll probably care.

But not as much as you'd care if it was a Frenchman visits your site and you find out while you're on the Seine.. because French repercussions for contempt of court are pretty heavy handed, especially for foreigners.